Sales Excellence Archives

I’ll Pretend I’m Selling, If You Pretend You’re Buying

B2B Marketing and Sales, Buyer Engagement, Chief Revenue Officer, Revenue Growth, Sales Effectiveness, Sales Excellence

In my four decades in sales leadership at both large enterprises and early-stage growth companies, and in my subsequent consulting & sales advisory practice, I have witnessed and resolved many poor sales practices. If sales leaders do not diagnose and correct these Deadly Sins of Selling, then accelerated and predictable sales outcomes will be in jeopardy. I recount these sins with amusement since they also tell us something about human nature and how that factors into successful selling practices. Individual sellers, their sales managers, sales trainers, and sales coaches can all benefit from being on alert to these common sins.

April 15, 2024/0 Comments/by Sherwin Uretsky

Wine Glass Account Planning

Revenue Growth, Sales Excellence

For some of our most strategic accounts over the years, we always took the time to develop a robust account plan. One of the fun and rewarding features of these account plans was the “wine glass” analysis.

December 23, 2021/0 Comments/by John Stone

Prospect Qualification in the Age of Inbound Marketing

Buyer Engagement, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Architecture, Revenue Growth, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Qualification requires a more collaborative approach. Deal Qualification should not be considered as a moment in time, rather it happens thorough buyer engagement process and across the end-to-end marketing and sales funnel. Qualification is based on a body of knowledge and insights gained through prospect engagement along the buyer journey.

September 17, 2021/0 Comments/by John Stone

Integrated Marketing and Sales Process

Account-Based Marketing, B2B Marketing and Sales, Chief Revenue Officer, Closed-loop Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Revenue Architecture, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Buyers want an efficient, effective, quality buying experience. They don’t consider whether their experience is “marketing-generated” or “sales-generated”. They choose if they want to engage with your web content, 3rd party digital outposts or marketplaces or with your sales people. They most likely will interact with all of these in different sequences and in unstructured and unpredictable ways.
Buyer engagement efforts take place all along the buyer journey and to deliver the experiences buyers expect and maximize your revenue impact, you need an integrated marketing and sales process.

December 21, 2020/by John Stone

Sales Qualification Tools using FACT instead of BANT and SCOTSMAN

B2B Marketing and Sales, Revenue Growth, Revenue Programs, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Post originally published in 2014

We have written a few articles about collaborative qualification and how to select and apply the right sales qualification tools – including SCOTSMAN and BANT. These tools are quite familiar to B2B sales and teams that focused on a considered sale. Yet, we see some challenges:

As clients are self-selling on websites, they will pre-qualify (assuming they find buying content on the website). This changes the role of sales-led qualification.
BANT is a proven model, but the focus is on qualification from the seller perspective, it works better to qualify OUT the opportunity rather than qualify IN the opportunity. It does not help build a collaborative relationship with the client. It is confrontational.
SCOTSMAN is another great model as it offers a nuanced approach, but it is hard to remember each of the elements in the mnemonic on the fly. Sales reps may need to pull out a cheat sheet which can be difficult in the heat of the moment. ( See our other post on BANT and Scotsman to learn more. )

So what is the right approach to sales qualification? We suggest a collaborative approach using FACT.

October 24, 2020/0 Comments/by John Stone

Chief Revenue Officer Success – The First 90 Days

B2B Marketing and Sales, Chief Revenue Officer, Revenue Architecture, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Written with contributions from Ed Funaro

As growth focused companies realize the critical synergies required across the marketing, sales and customer success functions, they are increasingly recruiting a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead the way. Yet many CROs fail without a properly defined role and an adequate onboarding process. It is vital to ensure CRO success.

A Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is responsible for a company’s revenue streams. He/she has the ultimate accountability for driving revenue growth. The role is clearly cross functional. The CRO oversees and aligns revenue-generating departments: Marketing, Sales and Customer Success. It is a challenging role. The average tenure of a Chief Revenue officer working at the same company is incredibly brief – only about 18 months, according to an annual survey from CSO Insights.

The first 90 days are critical – Whether a company makes money rests with the CRO. Expectations are that the CRO will have about one quarter or 90 days to prove they can meet management’s expectations. As Michael Watkins points out in his top selling book The First 90 Days.

August 14, 2020/0 Comments/by John Stone

Pivot to the NEW NORMAL – Accelerate Revenue with Tech-savvy Sales Talent and Tools

Account-Based Marketing, B2B Marketing and Sales, Revenue Growth, Revenue Strategy, Revenue Systems, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Do you have a focused SALES business recovery plan? Does it allow for current year goal achievement post-crisis?

Most businesses have a business continuity and resiliency plan that allows for continued operation in the event of an unforeseen circumstance, but most businesses do not have a revenue recovery plan! The pandemic crisis has forced new ways of working and impaired business performance, but companies must anticipate coming out of the crisis and being prepared for the new environment. This is the time to take advantage of the crisis by examining and addressing ineffective and unproductive elements of your revenue architecture including systems and talent.

An informal survey of CXO’s conducted by Revenue Architects over the last 6 weeks indicates that sales and marketing organizations are functioning differently through the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirmed that 90% have been materially impacted.

60% of participants stated that they have or plan to layoff/furlough part or all of their sales and marketing teams
50% stated they do not have a formal recovery plan to return to Pre Covid-19 performance.
100% stated that working remotely had a positive impact on their productivity while also representing new management challenges
80% indicated that it was harder to bring some staff given the reverse incentives of government programs.

Conducting business under current constraints with social distancing, remote working and the reduction of capital expenditures is a new challenge. It can be harder to sell if you are not in front of the client. Yet even before the pandemic the skills and profile of sales superstars were changing. And the B2B buyer, already digital savvy, was becoming more educated and self-sufficient using online resources to self-sell.

“If you give me a techno-savvy, Internet-friendly, google ranked, instant responding, collaborating, differentiated, social media savvy, value-driven, a value-based messaging, salesperson who uses the voice of the customer testimonials and is interested in how the customer profits…then, I will give you sales results”.

But how do we infuse these talents and skills along with sales best practices into our selling team and drive sales, take market share, and position for the upcoming market expansion?

June 24, 2020/0 Comments/by Ed Funaro

Have Something to Say, and Say it Well

Brand Presence, Content Marketing, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

Persuasive Communications Enhances Sales and Marketing

Persuasive Communications helps you communicate more effectively and deliver your message in a logical and persuasive manner. A very useful framework for communicating and persuasive arguments is S-C-Q-A. At Revenue Architects, when discussing a client presentation, we often ask each other, “What is the S-C-Q-A? ”.

October 17, 2019/0 Comments/by John Stone

Sherwin’s 10 Deadly Sins of Sales

B2B Marketing and Sales, Revenue Growth, Sales Enablement, Sales Excellence

During my three decades in sales leadership roles at large enterprises, early-stage growth companies, and my management consulting practice, I have witnessed and corrected many bad sales practices. These practices, if not course-corrected, would lead to zero sales. When they numbered an even ten, they became Sherwin’s 10 Deadly Sins of Sales. Out of the office with senior executives, I would recount them to their great amusement.

June 21, 2019/by Sherwin Uretsky

The Problem with Today’s Sales Methodologies

B2B Marketing and Sales, Buyer Engagement, Closed-loop Marketing, Revenue Growth, Sales Excellence

Face it. Most of the sales methodologies from the 80’s are tired. They do not address what growth companies need today. Growth companies need to shift from using a sales methodology to using a revenue methodology.

February 7, 2019/by John Stone

I’ll Pretend I’m Selling, If You Pretend You’re Buying

Wine Glass Account Planning

Prospect Qualification in the Age of Inbound Marketing

Integrated Marketing and Sales Process

Sales Qualification Tools using FACT instead of BANT and SCOTSMAN

Chief Revenue Officer Success – The First 90 Days

Pivot to the NEW NORMAL – Accelerate Revenue with Tech-savvy Sales Talent and Tools

Do you have a focused SALES business recovery plan? Does it allow for current year goal achievement post-crisis?

Have Something to Say, and Say it Well

Persuasive Communications Enhances Sales and Marketing

Sherwin’s 10 Deadly Sins of Sales

The Problem with Today’s Sales Methodologies

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